CAM LICENSING – VIOLATIONS BEING IGNORED!

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann

Published July 21, 2026

Three years ago the Florida Legislature added quite a few “punishments for violations” to the statutes regulating Community Association Managers (FS 468.431-438), because complaints from owners added up and the Legislature was obviously no longer willing to cover up for CAMs. But when you hoped that all these new provisions in the statutes would put an end to CAMs violating the laws, you hoped in vain. Nothing changed and the folks at CAM LICENSING at the DBPR are clearly asleep at the wheel. They still allow CAMs to use the stupid excuse “the board told us to do this”!

Well, if you are still from a generation where history was taught in school, you might remember the NUREMBERG TRIALS. Hitler’s henchmen tried to use the same excuse: “We acted on orders of the Fuehrer”!

It didn’t work in Nuremberg – they hung them all – but this “excuse” is still working in Tallahassee. Most owners filing complaints against licensed CAMs are still receiving the same form-letters saying: “No violation could be found” or – if pressed – they get the letter from CAM Licensing allowing the excuse of “the board told me to do it!”

Licenses are given out for a reason, telling potential clients that the licensee is proficient in his/her job. But it should as well show clients that a license could be revoked if the licensee is violating the statutes and rules regulating his/her profession.

But CAM LICENSING, supposedly regulating CAMs, is failing to do its job in Florida and many CAMs continue to violate the rules because they know that they can get away with it.

What does it tell you when a DBPR employee, after finding a CAM guilty of embezzlement, tells the owner who filed the complaint: “What do you want me to do? Take his livelihood away?”